


Back to the Beginning

by WriteByNight



Series: Sterek Week 2016 [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Mates, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Sterek Week, Sterek Week 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8507572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteByNight/pseuds/WriteByNight
Summary: His claws bit into the palms of his hands and Derek forced the shift back until the blunt tips of his human nails dug into the cuts his claws had left, which were already beginning to heal. He kept his eyes trained on the two boys and focused on the human one in an effort to hold back his shift.
   The teen wasn't looking his way, so Derek couldn't tell what color his eyes were, but he admired the shape of the human's jaw and slope of his nose that upturned just slightly at the end. He was beautiful in an unconventional way that many might overlook. He was attractive in the same way that Paige had been and the similarities only made it harder to fight the urge to shift. Derek felt the itch to get closer, to bury his face into the side of his neck and breathe him in.  ~~~~~~Derek meeting Stiles and Scott for the first time in the woods, but with more depth.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5 - Canon Divergence
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from "Come Clean" by Hilary Duff.

Derek could smell and hear the teenagers the moment they pulled onto the preserve in the loud monstrosity that sounded like an incredibly outdated Jeep.

He walked over to his duffel bag and took his time taking off his basketball shorts and switching them out for a pair of clean boxer briefs and an old pair of jeans. He tugged on a t-shirt and inclined his head as he heard a distant splash.

' _Idiots_ ,' he thought with a quiet snort as he grabbed his black leather jacket from the banister and slid it over his broad shoulders and shook his arms until it was positioned comfortably. Derek scowled as he listened to one of the boys talking to the other about catching a ball and his newly developed heightened senses. ' _He must be the one that was bitten the other night_.'

“Smell things? Like what?” another voice spoke up, and Derek froze.

The voice echoed in his head as he spoke to his friend and Derek had no idea why his heart began to pound. It'd been so long since he'd felt his body respond to another person like that.

' _Not since Paige_.'

Derek's breath caught in his throat. What the hell did that even mean? Why would he even have these feelings for a _guy_? He wasn't gay. He'd never, not once, been attracted to another man in his entire life. It didn't make sense.

He tried to ignore his own accelerated heart rate and stilted breathing pattern as he began to focus on his senses. He could see a couple of ants as they trailed across the rotting hardwood floor across the room. He could smell the mint mojito gum and the heavy sweat-and-spunk mixture as the teenagers drew closer to his house. He could hear the voice that made Derek's stomach swoop to the ground and made his heartbeat stutter.

“So, all this started with a bite?”

“Well, what if it's an infection? Like, what if my body's flooded with adrenaline before I go into shock or something?” the other teen asked and Derek wanted to roll his eyes. 

His heart rate peaked again as the other teen replied, “You know what, I think I've heard of this. It's a specific kind of infection.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I think it's called lycanthropy.”

“What's that? Is that bad?” The other teen sounded slightly panicked and Derek did roll his eyes. Why hadn't the smart one been bitten? At least he'd have the brains to go with the benefits of heightened senses, accelerated healing, supernatural strength, and a longer life span.

“Oh, yeah, it's the worst.” The teen replied, “But only once a month.”

“Once a month?” Derek had no doubt that the clueless one was thinking about menstruation and becoming female one night a month.

“Mhm. On the night of the full moon.”

Derek wasn't sure if the other teen was really aware that werewolves and other supernatural creatures existed, or if he was just trying to scare his friend. The Hale family had always done their best to protect the humans of Beacon Hills from discovering the existence of the supernatural world. They'd done a fantastic job of making sure the public was unaware that werewolves were a part of their community, but it wouldn't be the first time someone had stumbled across something they shouldn't have.

It made Derek wonder if the smarter-sounding teen had come across other supernatural creatures before, and if he smelled as good to them as he did to Derek. Just then, the teen let out a little howl that sounded painfully human, but it still made Derek want to howl back in response.

' _What the fuck is going on? Why is this happening to me_?'

He made his way to the door of the house. He wasn't entirely sure what the teens were even doing in the woods, but he had an idea of what they were probably going to use as their excuse. Derek grabbed an inhaler from where he'd placed in on the windowsill after he had found it on his morning run through the preserve. If the dumb one really had been the one bitten, he wouldn't even need it anymore. Apparently, the idiot wasn't aware of his lack of medical issues.

The smarter one kept making jokes at his friend's expense and Derek wondered if it was a coping mechanism to deal with his friend's stupidity.

A small pang stabbed his chest and he'd been focusing on the teens so much, he didn't have time to repress the memories before they could manifest, but he still fought to keep them locked away. It'd been a long time since Derek had any friends to joke around with and make fun of each other good-naturedly to pass the time. It'd been just as long since the last time Derek had felt the rushing rage of hormones as the scent of the non-werewolf grew stronger as they walked further into the preserve and crossed over the invisible line onto Hale property.

Derek decided that they were getting too close and he really didn't want them on his family's land. The ramshackle of a house was the only thing that remained of the Hale family and he didn't want them to know where it was located so they could go sneaking around when he wasn't able to prevent them from doing so. It wouldn't sit right knowing that they could be wandering around where his family had lived and died while he boarded a flight back to New York. The thought alone made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up and his nails elongated into claws.

He walked out of the charred remains of his childhood home, leaped down the safety hazard that was the porch steps and jogged silently toward the two male voices. Once they were within sight he slowed his pace to a stealthy walk that was nearly silent despite the copious amount of leaves on the ground as he continued toward them.

“But if you see me in shop class trying to melt all the silver I can find it's because Friday's a full moon.”

Derek ignored the other teenager as he took in the sight of the lean male that had just spoken. His dark brown hair was kept in a buzz cut, and his skin looked unnaturally pale compared to the tanner skin of his friend. He wore a graphic tee with a bulls-eye on the chest, and Derek couldn't understand why someone would wear a target on their chest willingly. Not when every hunter seemed to know he had an invisible one painted on his back. He could imagine the hunters forcing him into such a shirt and using him as a living target practice for new recruits.

His claws bit into the palms of his hands and Derek forced the shift back until the blunt tips of his human nails dug into the cuts his claws had left, which were already beginning to heal. He kept his eyes trained on the two boys and focused on the human one in an effort to hold back his shift.

The teen wasn't looking his way, so Derek couldn't tell what color his eyes were, but he admired the shape of the human's jaw and slope of his nose that upturned just slightly at the end. He was beautiful in an unconventional way that many might overlook. He was attractive in the same way that Paige had been and the similarities only made it harder to fight the urge to shift. Derek felt the itch to get closer, to bury his face into the side of his neck and breathe him in. 

He was about to step toward the human when he heard them mention finding a body. ' _Laura_.' Derek's heart panged in his chest as his gut twisted. He still couldn't believe that his older sister, his protector and only lucid pack member, was gone and he hadn't been able to stop it.

Derek wished he hadn't put up such a fight to come back to Beacon Hills when Laura had said she felt a pull and booked her flight. He wished he hadn't remained in New York while his sister traveled across the country, alone, to the place where their entire family, barring Peter, had met their end while he stubbornly stayed behind and foolishly pretended that the past hadn't haunted his future.

His lost his train of thought as the human teen finally noticed him and smacked his friend nervously on the shoulder. The taller boy fiddled with the collar and hood of his jacket nervously as he stared at Derek.

His eyes were the most interesting shade of light brown. The large shape reminded him of a doe as the teen's eyes widened and their dark whiskey color turned to molten amber under Derek's watchful gaze. He wondered how they could do that without alluding to some type of supernatural heritage. The teen didn't smell like anything other than human, unlike the other boy.

Derek switched his gaze to the shorter, wavy-haired teen as he stood up. He couldn't believe that the kid in front of him could possibly be a werewolf, but his scent didn't lie. The boy was a werewolf, whether he knew and accepted the fact or not.

He made his way over to the teenagers and had to fight to keep the falter in his voice as he asked, “What are you doing here?” The result made him sound like an asshole, but Derek figured it was better off that way. It might discourage them from coming back and snooping around some more.

The closer Derek got to them, the stronger the scent of the boy in the graphic tee became. He could smell citrus and honey with something sharp and jarring like mint, but it was much stronger than artificially flavored gum. He could almost taste the teen's nervous energy accompanied by a low thrum of arousal.

Could it be that the only guy he'd ever found himself attracted to could possibly be attracted to him as well?

Derek doubted it. He didn't have that kind of luck.

The tan, possible-werewolf, teen made a barely audible, “Umh,” sound, but with Derek's supernatural hearing, he heard it clearly.

He refused to look at the pale human teen. He was too afraid he'd be entranced by his startlingly good looks and likeness to Paige all over again. He had to lay down the law and make sure they didn't come back.

“This is private property.” He kept his jaw tight as he said the words, hoping that his slightly too-large two front teeth weren't incredibly noticeable. His bunny teeth, Laura and Cora had called them and constantly teased him about.

“Uh, sorry man. We didn't know.” The teen with the buzz cut said. He did look apologetic, which surprised Derek. He had assumed from the way the two teens had rambled through his woods that they were entitled little pricks who thought they owned the whole town. If only they knew how long the town had belonged to the Hale family...

Derek refused to look away from the shorter teen. He smelled faintly like pack and it only set Derek further on edge. The wavy-haired boy wasn't family, but he smelled like he could be a distant relative. Like someone, he didn't really know, but couldn't deny being related to. Except Peter was his mother's only sibling and his father had been an only child, and both of his parents had been orphans by the time he had been born. There was no way the kid in front of him could be a relative, but that didn't explain why he smelled like pack.

“Yeah, we were just looking for something, but,” the teen werewolf said as he gave a small shrug. “Uh, forget it.”

Derek whipped his hand from his pocket to toss the inhaler he'd found at the curly-haired teen, who caught it easily, despite having no way of knowing that Derek was going to throw anything at him, nor that it could be anything as small and innocent as an inhaler.

Derek turned and began to walk away, and hoped that his silent entrance, rude manners and quick exit discouraged the teens from hanging around or ever stepping foot on his property again. He focused his hearing on the teens as he headed back to his house. He wanted to make sure the nosy teenagers didn't follow him home.

“Alright, come on. I gotta get to work.” Derek heard the young werewolf say as Derek walked further into the woods toward his house. He didn't hear either of the teens make any step toward leaving his property, so he paused as he debated going back to force them off of his property.

“Dude, that was _Derek Hale_. You remember, right? He's only, like, a few years older than us.”

Derek's heart skipped a beat when he realized that the teen that reminded him so much of Paige knew who he was. It set him on edge and he had to force himself to resume walking toward his house instead of running back and pinning the boy to the ground and demanding to know how he knew who he was. He forced himself to think logically. He was nearly twenty-two and those kids looked barely older than sixteen. The same age Cora would be if she were alive. Had they known Cora? Was the teen related to Paige? She had been an only child, but she could've had cousins and the boy could easily be part of her family.

“Remember what?” The werewolf asked, breaking Derek from his thoughts.

“His family? They all burned to death in a fire, like, ten years ago.”

It hadn't been ten years, though. It had happened only half a decade ago, but that didn't stop the sight of his house on fire as his family and whole life went up in smoke from haunting Derek's dreams several times a month.

“I wonder what he's doing back.”

Derek's heart stopped pounding as he realized that even if the teens knew about him, they really didn't know him or who he was. He was still safe, at least for a little while. He'd have to keep an eye on the non-werewolf. He seemed like like the type that wouldn't stop until he found out if his friend really was a werewolf or not, and knew what Derek was doing back in Beacon Hills.

The other teen made a wet, airy sound with his mouth before he said, “Come on.”

Derek breathed easier as the teens walked back toward the preserve and off of Hale property. He had only come back to find Laura, and once he had found her, he only intended to give her a proper burial and then board the next flight back to New York.

He hadn't expected the cops to get involved, nor to find a werewolf that smelled like pack and a teen that made him question his sexuality and force him to remember his first girlfriend and how she had died in his arms, by his own hand. The way the human made him feel had Derek wondering if his mom hadn't been lying when she had told him and his sisters that soul mates weren't just a myth.

Derek exhaled loudly as he climbed the dilapidated, but familiar, steps of the burnt shell of his childhood home. He had a feeling it'd be a long time before he would get back to New York.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is so late. I really didn't even want to finish it, but I just want to get to day 7, yet I refuse to post the fics out of order. This wasn't my original idea for this part of the week, but my other idea would've taken too long and I thought it'd be better off as a oneshot without affiliations to Sterek Week.
> 
> Hope you guys liked it, anyway.


End file.
